Tries To Collect For Gifts To Girl Who Weds Another

1920 (1919)

"As a Romeo, You're a Failure," Says Judge After Fining Man and Exacting His Promise Not to Molest Woman With Further Demands for Return of Presents.

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Jan. 1. — Justice Casimir J. Welch, occupying the bench in municipal court, surveyed the pair before him in the prisoners' dock with studied frigidity. Common disturbers of the peace in this, the holiday season, when every one should be happy and all serene, were finding little favor. But when Mrs. M. Bellos, the wife of a Greek restaurant owner, told her story the court sat up and took notice. This is the story Mrs. Bellos told:

While still a maiden she was the proprietor of a restaurant and rooming-house in Sayre, Pa. Business was good and there was little to worry her, when Bill Poulos became a guest at her rooming-house, and then a regular boarder. Bill was fairly handsome and likeable and soon he became attentive. As time passed his attentions became more pronounced, until he became a suitor.

Now the proprietress of the rooming-house, tho she liked Bill, had no thought of becoming involved matrimonially, since she had learned from some source, probably during one of Bill's unguarded moments, that Bill had a wife in "the old country." Consequently, when Bill's protestations became obnoxious she quietly sold out and came to Kansas City.

But Bill was not to be put off in that manner. He followed, arriving here two weeks ago, only to find that his "intended" had married.

He found her to be Mrs. M. Bellos.

But Bill was undaunted. Besides, there were the presents he had given her amounting in value to something like $200, as he figured it.

And that was where the disturbance of the peace charge had its origin.

When Bill found that she still spurned advances he resorted to demands for the return of the presents or $200 and, being balked in this direction, turned to the to the husband. There again he had no luck and, forthwith began making trouble, with the usual result. The police were called.

Justice Welch patiently listened thru it all. Then he turned on Poulos.

"As a Romeo you are a complete failure, Poulos. That kind of stuff may go in your country, but it won't go here. You are fined $50, but I'll give you a stay if you keep away from that restaurant."

Poulos promised to stay away.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 4.

A Poet's Treasures – What Was Found in Eugene Field's Room

1896

A Poet's Treasures

Eugene Field's Queer Room and Its Strange Contents

Before we go upstairs to Eugene Field's room, the one which holds his choicest treasures, it is necessary to remind you again that he has a child's love of grotesque toys and of barbaric colors and effects. He was especially fond of red. The room in which he died is papered with a fantastic, swirling pattern on a red ground, which is absolutely exasperating to those people who prefer soft browns and dull reds. Few persons understand what his idea was in selecting this red paper with its grotesque yet conventional swirl. In Henry B. Fuller's "With the Procession" that author tells about a Chicago woman named Susan Bates, who furnished her whole house magnificently except one little room.

Upon this room she spent a great deal of money, and visited many old-fashioned stores, in order to furnish it like a primitive one she had occupied when a girl in her father's house. Now this was partly Eugene Field's idea in furnishing his own room. He was fond of grotesque effects, he loved red passionately, and he wanted a reminder of the furnishings of a century ago. Where he found that gorgeous red paper, or the old-fashioned calico for the red curtain, would be difficult to tell, but he had a knack for discovering quaint things which other people pass by without notice. When it is added that the rugs on the floor are also red, perhaps it may be imagined that this room in hideous. But it is not. The long bookcase on one side, the white column in the middle around which are arranged shelves holding Mr. Field's treasures, and a gray screen repeating with a slight variation the same singular swirl that is upon the walls relieve the eye to such an extent that the effect is harmonious.

As you enter the room, you are confronted with two hideous figures. An outlandish Japanese figure is suspended from the wall by one arm. In the other it holds three Japanese gongs fastened together so as to make a loud sound when struck with the red stick. The other is the face of a hobgoblin attached to the headboard of his bedstead. Field pretended that he bought it to frighten away his babies when they insisted upon interrupting him while he was writing; but, like their father, they were so fond of the ludicrous that the strange faces the monster would make when certain strings were pulled only made them laugh; so the intended bugaboo but added to the attractions of the room.

On the shelves one may find a strange collection of quaint bottles of every conceivable shape and size, and Mr. Field hunted many shops for those candelabra which our grandmothers loved — those with glass pendants through which a child may distinguish the seven colors of the rainbow. He also had a queer collection of canes, candlesticks and baby shoes. Not alone the first shows of his own babies wore, with the toes and heels worn out, but wood shoes, and even glass shoes, reminding one of Cinderella's glass slipper. There are also two strange wooden horses, one used by Mr. Toole, the English actor, when he played "The Cricket on the Hearth," and the other, daubed with a few spots of paint, used by Mr. Jefferson in the same play. Neither must one forget Mrs. Hawthorne's ginger-jar, nor the ax Mr. Gladstone gave Eugene Field. The ax is suspended above the window. — St. Nicholas.

Room Belongs to The Children

1921

Properly Equipped Playroom a Paradise for the Little Ones.

The most interesting feature of a New York home, according to Town and Country, is the "Do Do Room," a completely equipped playroom where the word "don't" is never heard. The idea of this juvenile paradise originated with paterfamilias, whose childhood was marred by continually hearing "Don't do this!" or "Don't break that!"

The room itself is a large sunny place, splendidly ventilated by plenty of windows, which are safely barred. One end of the hardwood floor is uncovered, while the other has a thick woolen rug, fastened down so securely that acrobatic feats or any amount or running or sliding cannot loosen it. The walls, which are deadened, so that noises cannot penetrate to other parts of the house, are covered with blue paper from which finger prints can be easily washed off. The pictures and electric lights are caged, this precaution making possible a mild game of baseball or any amount of handball or bean bag tossing.

The chairs (minus rockers) and the tables are made with rounded corners. The fear of breaking dainty bric-a-brac does not bother the little inmates of the "Do Do Room," and the built-in bookcase, where favorite books and magazines abound, has no glass doors to be kept away from, or silk curtain which must not be touched.


Twenty-One Yards of Sausage

In the rivalry to make the biggest sausage some wonderful specimens are being produced by Germans in Pennsylvania. The latest record-breaker is the work of Jacob Ackerman, of Limeport. It is 64 feet eight inches long.